Tech whiteboard interviews are hard on purpose.

Amazon
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Feb 13, 2021 49 Comments

I have a feeling that tech interviews are designed the way they are, so as to prevent constant job hopping.

I've many many times had recruiters from Google, Facebook etc contact me, and I've largely ignored them. Not because I don't want to someday work at Google or Facebook....but because I don't want to spend 2 months studying like I'm back in fucking college. My experience and skills don't seem to matter: what matters is rather I can solve the stocks optimization problem using dynamic programming.

I can understand this difficulty for people who have no relevant experience. But for someone with 7 YOE, why do I need to feel like I'm taking a final exam? Why does my actual experience not matter at all?

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TOP 49 Comments
  • New
    bHNs44

    New

    bHNs44
    I would expect someone who has been a dev for even 1 year to be able to solve the stocks optimization problem on a whiteboard. It’s one of those questions that shows true skill is about problem solving and not coding
    Feb 13, 2021 18
    • Amazon
      okdn21

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      okdn21
      Pretty sure most of the New in this thread are college students / interns who have plenty of free time to LC and gain an advantage over more tenured folks and don't want to give up that advantage and thus advocate against removing DS / Algo style coding rounds.
      Feb 14, 2021
    • New
      hyLG75

      New

      hyLG75
      lol, I have 11 years of SWE experience, interviewed ~100 candidates over the last 3 years, never worked at FAANG (actually failed FAANG interviews 4 times by now) πŸ™‚
      Feb 14, 2021
  • IMO system design is a better way to evaluate senior candidates, maybe mid level as well. We do 3 system designs and a behavioral for our on-site and I come out interviews feeling like I have a feeling of what the candidate would be able to solve architecturally in an actual meeting at work, rather than just proving that they’re well studied or high IQ like leetcode does.
    Feb 13, 2021 6
    • Amazon
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      OP
      The more senior you go the less code you write. This is true almost anywhere: as you're more likely to be designing larger systems and less likely to be doing the low level implementation.

      It doesn't surprise me that some senior level people have gotten rusty in their coding skills.
      Feb 13, 2021
    • Twitter
      j289h2

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      j289h2
      most places do 2 design afaik. fb, goog etc
      Feb 13, 2021
  • So true, tech interviews are flawed and should be changed to more of domain knowledge, while fresh grad positions can stay with DS and algo
    Feb 13, 2021 3
    • For your first point, I’m sure there are people that can literally get past the coding round without much prep because that’s just how smart they are. But I’m pretty sure the other majority literally spends time on LC and just regurgitate informations. Secondly, set aside some time, well what’s your definition of β€œsome time” because some people have to at least spend a good 3-4 weeks of prepping especially if you already have a full time job. And no the process does not guarantee the domain knowledge, because you spend most your of time on leetcode and not on stuff like how to optimise your website’s loading time in different browsers or how to do different joins or when to use certain joins in SQLs
      Feb 13, 2021
    • Amazon
      okdn21

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      okdn21
      If you can practice LC and get better at it, then that defeats the purpose of using it as intelligence test. And every single person who has practiced LC has got better at it. So, it's useless as a test.
      Feb 14, 2021
  • Twitter
    j289h2

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    j289h2
    cos there is no better way that scales. I believe the questions are fine just the way they evaluate needs to change. u need up finding smart coders or hard workers which usually works out
    Feb 13, 2021 6
  • I agree dynamic programming is inappropriate for gauging someone in say, SaaS services. However, LeetCode style questions are a practical hack for interviewers at large firms.

    > "because I don't want to spend 2 months studying like I'm back in fucking college"

    LeetCode questions filter out people with the above attitude. No offense intended, but this comment suggests you find dynamic programming difficult and you refuse to take time to understand it. You know they'll test you on it, and you refuse to prepare for it.

    There's no shortage of talent applying to Google or Facebook, so they can turn down an amazing candidate rather than risk hiring a bad one. Refusing to learn something you're asked to prepare for the interview is not a good flag.

    Ideally, Google/Facebook should find managers from teams you'll likely join and have them interview you and ask relevant domain questions. But these companies have too many applicants and can't give everyone special treatment. And other times, maybe your best-fit teams aren't hiring. So as a hacky quick-fix, they stick you with a LeetCode question.

    > "I have a feeling that tech interviews are designed the way they are, so as to prevent constant job hopping."

    I see them partially as a filter for people who won't do certain work they dislike... which is reasonable. If you won't prepare well for an exam-like interview that you hate, then maybe you can't lead a project that you hate but has to get done. That's not a quality you want in your senior engineer or team lead.

    Finally, dynamic programming is not rocket science and you don't need a PhD for it... it all makes sense once you approach it from the correct perspective, and it doesn't take 2 months. Once you truly understand it, you don't forget after 7 years and have to review - just like you don't forget riding a bike. Universities usually teach it wrong and most people never learned to ride the dynamic programming bike in the first place.
    Feb 13, 2021 4
    • New
      hyLG75

      New

      hyLG75
      > β€œif they told me I was going to be quizzed on proper cluster arrangement in a kubernetes node”

      I wonder how you think k8s cluster management is implemented. An engineer designed a solution for that problem and wrote the code for that. So, when you land on a company at the scale of your current company, fb, google, etc., you may need to understand the implementation of that system or even need to implement one or similar from scratch. That’s only possible if you have right level of problem solving skills through coding.
      Feb 14, 2021
    • New
      hyLG75

      New

      hyLG75
      In general, I think your expectations are misaligned on what’s being evaluated here and that’s giving you a hard time. I suggest you to understand that first. If you are not interviewing candidates at your current company, start getting into that for example, that will give you understanding on the expectations and signals that are being looked at, and also will give you some degree of appreciation on how hard of a problem hiring engineers is and why there is no perfect system for that.
      Feb 14, 2021